Transcript Slide 1

Identifying and Managing Aggressive
Student Behaviors, Attitudes and
Emotions
Brian Van Brunt, Ed.D.
www.brianvanbrunt.com
Presenter
• Dr. Brian Van Brunt serves as the Director
of Counseling at Western Kentucky State
University. He is the president of the
American College Counseling Association
(ACCA) and has worked in higher education
for over ten years.
• He is a senior trainer in John Byrnes
Aggression Management System.
www.aggressionmanagement.com
Case Study “Kendall”
• Kendall has trouble staying focused in the classroom. He
often is interrupting lectures by talking to friends in the
back of the classroom.
• Kendall has been diagnosed with ADHD and is attending
college partially because his parents said “you can go to
college or you can get a job.” He struggles with anger,
frustration and lack of focus.
• He has headphones on during an exam and the professor
asks him to take them off…he laughs and looks back down.
Case Study “Sara”
• Sara’s boyfriend recently broke up with her after learning
that she had been cheating on him. She is very focused in
class and very detail orientated on her assignments.
• Another student tells her to “shut up” under her breath at
the start of class and Sara has had enough. She turns in
anger and shouts “you shut up!” and throws a water bottle
at the other student.
• The professor then asks he to leave the classroom and she
refuses and says “I didn’t do anything. It was this bitch…”
What Keeps us From Addressing
These Behaviors?
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Hopes that they will go away on its own
Fear or worry that nothing will happen if I report it
Fear or worry that reporting it will make me look bad
Concern that we will be victims of retaliation
Being seen as a “rat” or “intolerant” or “unkind”
Don’t want to be responsible for pushing someone “over
the edge.”
• Not sure what to do
This training is designed to teach the basics of
Aggression Management.
How to Recognize Aggression
The Un-Magnificent Seven
How to Manage Aggression
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How to Recognize Aggression
Distinguish between assertive and aggressive
behavior
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How to Recognize Aggression
Aggressive behavior occurs frequently in the
classroom.
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Student-to-student arguments
Direct or indirect threatening emails
Drunk or substance abusing students
Psychological crisis
Dating relationship arguments that spill into classroom
Vandalism and robbery
Threats concerning papers, grades or attendance
How to Recognize Aggression
• Address behavior, not targeting mentally ill.
• We are concerned with aggression, threats
intimidation, hoarding of weapons, frustration,
anger & isolation that leads to violence.
• Mentally ill are more likely to be victims of
violence, not perpetrators.
– (Choe, Tepin, Abrams; 2008).
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How to Recognize Aggression
• Following the tragedy of Virginia Tech and the
NIU school shootings, we’ve learned that
aggressive individuals engage in either:
– Primal Aggression
– Cognitive Aggression
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How to Recognize Aggression
• Primal Aggression
– Instinctual fight or flight
response
– Fueled by adrenaline
– Aggressors who lose control
and attack
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Body Language of a Primal Attacker: Clustering
Red-face to white-face
Head back
Target glancing
Bulging arm & neck veins
Shifting shoulders
Watch palms for weapons
Lips quivering/teeth bared
Hands clenched/pumping
Feet shifting/kicking
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How to Recognize Aggression
Cognitive Aggression
– Conscious or non-conscious response
– Fueled by intent (hostile/malicious intent)
– Victimizer, predator (criminal) or terrorist
(murder/suicide), School shooters
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• On August 5, 2009 George Sodini
turned out the lights on a danceaerobics class, and opened fire with
three guns, letting loose with a
fusillade of at least 36 bullets.
• He killed 3 women and wounded 9
others before committing suicide.
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• He left a blog from Nov. 5, 2008 to Aug. 3, 2009.
www.georgesodini.com/20090804.htm
• “they look so beautiful as to not be human, very edible"
• "I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne
- yet 30 million women rejected me - over an 18 or 25year period"
• "I can do this. Leaving work today, I felt like a zombie just going thru the motions."
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• On December 8, 2009 Jason Hamilton
fired two rounds at the professor in his
math classroom at the Woodbridge
campus of Northern Virginia
Community College.
• He had a .30-06 bolt action rifle
purchased the day before at a Dick's
Sporting Goods store.
• Rifle jammed after two shots and he was arrested in the hall.
Police report he was upset about grades before the shooting.
• Thirty-six of 45 campus security cameras were not working at
the time of the shooting , did not have floor plans or master
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keys to the building
• On Oct. 8, 2009, Damon Thompson
cut the throat of a student in his
UCLA chemistry class.
• After the attack, he walked to the
student information center 3 floors
below.
• "He was very calm and said he had
stabbed someone."
• She asked if he was joking. Then she called police. Thompson
waited in a chair for the few minutes it took police to arrive.
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• Damon reports a history of teasing by other students, many of
these complaints he brought forward to staff.
• Frank said other professors reported similar exchanges with
Thompson, who complained he was the constant target of taunts
from students.
• “I believe I heard you, Professor Frank, say that I was 'troubled' and
'crazy' among other things. My outrage at this situation coupled
with the pressure of the very weighted examination dulled my
concentration and detracted from my performance.”
• As of June 10, 2010---Damon is pleading not guilty by reason of
instanity
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• On February 4th, 2010 the former Georgia
Tech graduate student Kshitij Shrotri
stabbed a researcher Samer Tawfik and
wounded a campus safety office with a
katana sword.
• "I have to kill you," Tawfik recalls him
saying. "Why," Tawfik asked. "I have to kill
you," came the response.
• When campus police
arrived, Kshitij said, “You
will have to kill me.”
• He added, “He ruined my
life.”
• He is currently being held in
Fulton jail.
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• On February 12th , 2010 Amy Bishop
shot and killed three and severely
wounded three others during a faculty
meeting.
• She taught her regularly scheduled
biology class and then attended a
faculty meeting. Another professor
reports she sat quietly listening for 40
minutes before opening fire.
• There is speculation that this was
related to her not getting tenure at the
university or related to a business
project.
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How to Recognize Aggression
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How to Recognize Aggression
• With both Cognitive and Primal Aggressors, we must be
aware of how they move through the aggression
continuum.
• The Aggression Continuum is made up of the:
– Crisis Phase
– Escalation Phase
– Trigger Phase
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How to Recognize Aggression
• Trigger Phase (Heart Rate 60-80)
– Calm, normal breathing
– An activating event occurs
– Stress and anxiety begin
– Circumstances are dynamic but everyone is coping
– Offers a baseline
– Begins escalating…
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How to Recognize Aggression
• Escalation Phase (Heart Rate 115-145)
– As anxiety mounts…
– Quality of judgment diminishes
– Swearing, arguing with others
– Fewer arm and hand gestures
– Diminished creativity in thought
– Reduced thoughtful consideration
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Faculty will also go through these changes
(escalation phase) when responding to a crisis.
Cycle breathing can reduce physical, emotional &
cognitive experiences during escalation. Helps you
stay in control of decision making & deescalate the
crisis.
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Breath in slowly to the count of
1…2…3…4…
Hold your breath to the count of 1…2…
Breath out slowly to the count of
1…2…3…4…
Hold your breath to the count of 1…2…
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How to Recognize Aggression
• Crisis Phase (Heart Rate 145-175)
– Hardens point of view
– Issues ultimatum
– Growling, baring teeth
– Direct, prolonged eye contact
– Moving in and out of your personal space
– Eyes targeting body parts to strike
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How to Recognize Aggression
• Crisis Phase (Heart Rate Above 175)
– Loss of verbal control
– Loss of judgment
– Begins physical attack
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Nine Levels of Aggression
Win/Lose Attack
Limited Destructive Blows
Crisis Phase
Lose/Lose Attack
Forced Loss of Face
Image Destruction
Actions vs. Words
Harmful Debate
Hardening
Trigger Phase
Escalation Phase
Threat Strategies
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The Un-Magnificent Seven
• Not all behavior you encounter will be overt aggression.
• Most will be Cognitive (intent-driven) Aggression.
• Many students develop frustrating behavior patterns
that create chaos and disrupt others.
• We will now discuss the un-magnificent seven common
patterns of frustrating passive aggressive behavior.
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The Un-Magnificent Seven
• The Sherman Tank
– Enjoy confrontation & always need to prove
themselves right
– Argue about rules in your class & syllabus
– Push past weaker personalities
– Seek to dominate
– Challenge your authority
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The Un-Magnificent Seven
• The Sniper
– Criticizes you behind your back
– Gossips and creates chaos when you’re
not around
– Blends in to surroundings when
threatened or challenged, uses jokes or
sarcasm to cover motives
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The Un-Magnificent Seven
• The Exploder
– Has wide mood swings. Is a “loud mouth” and
makes insulting and cutting remarks
– Wants everyone silent who
disagrees with them and is happiest
when others are passive
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The Un-Magnificent Seven
• The Complainer
– Whines and complains about their situations or rules
in the syllabus
– Never seems happy or optimistic about
improvement, wears down and drains others
– Feels unappreciated and powerless
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The Un-Magnificent Seven
• The Negativist
– Is never happy and desires others to be just as
gloomy
– Rarely sees the bright side
– Says “no” to everything
– Bums out others
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The Un-Magnificent Seven
• The Clam
– Disengaged, silent and unresponsive
– May be upset or frustrated, but never
communicates it
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Keep “the clam” on the top of your list.
Quiet, growing frustration could be pre-cursor to
explosion or strategic plotting seen in many
school shootings.
Engage the student, help them express their
frustrations & become connected to community.
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The Un-Magnificent Seven
• The Bulldozer
– Overwhelms others with facts & figures
– Only values their own opinion and has
little regard for knowledge or viewpoints
of others
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How to Manage Aggression
• Now we have a basic understanding of
– Cognitive and Primal Aggression
– The Aggression Continuum
(Trigger, Escalation and Crisis)
– Passive Aggression (The Un-Magnificent Seven)
• How to manage aggressive behavior you may
encounter
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How to Manage Aggression
• Students respond less to what we say, and more
to the way and manner in which we say it.
• When communicating emotionally, people attend
to:
– Words 7%
– Tone/Inflection 38%
– Body Language 55%
93%!!!
(Albert Mehrabian (1971 UCLA Study)
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How to Manage Aggression
• We need to have the proper mindset prior to attempting
to manage any aggressive behavior.
• It is not the words we say, but the way we say them.
• Requires us to control our own emotions and body
language.
• Cycle Breathing can help us achieve this state.
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How to Manage Aggression
• Cycle Breathing helps us
– gain control over our breathing
– keep our heart rate down
– better respond to an aggressive situation
• Requires practice to internalize process of
lowering heart rate and controlling breathing.
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How to Manage Aggression
• In addition to cycle breathing; we must be prepared.
– Be aware of when a person is in a Trigger, Escalation
or Crisis Phase.
– Understand what to look for in Cognitive and Primal
Aggressors.
– Counseling staff should have a plan and training to
address the situation before it occurs.
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How to Manage Aggression
• Build trust with aggressor – key to de-escalating aggression.
• Be aware of differences but focus on similarities.
• Develop commonalties with students to persuade them
toward more healthy choices (non-aggressive).
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How to Manage Aggression
• We trust those who seem like us
– Match posture and movements of aggressive
student
– Match speech
– Match breathing
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How to Manage Aggression
• Find commonalities
– We remember feeling overwhelmed by classes
– We know it is hard to live in close quarters with others
– We’ve been frustrated over rules & felt trapped
– We may be sad when away from family/friends
– We don’t like being singled out & embarrassed
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How to Manage Aggression
• Display a quiet confidence
• Convey a willingness to help
• Offer acceptance, respect and validation
• Use enthusiasm and keen interest
• Ask “I there anything I can say or do to gain your
cooperation? . . . . I'd sure like to think there is.”
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How to Manage Aggression
• Be aware of perception differences. A student
in an escalation or crisis phase will see things
differently than someone not in these stages.
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QUACK!!!
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How to Manage Aggression
• We must acknowledge the difference between
how we currently see things and how the
aggressive person is.
• Efforts are then made to persuade the aggressor
toward healthier choices.
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How to Manage Aggression
• Understand the key motivations for the aggressor.
• Where is the student coming from? What is their
perspective?
• What have they got to gain?
• What have they got to lose?
• What can I use to persuade them?
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How to Manage Aggression
• They may lose their status as a student if their
behavior continues.
• They may upset their parents and boyfriend/
girlfriend if they continue on this path.
• Help them understand “Cooperate with me
because it is best for you…if you keep on this
path, your day will be ruined – or worse.”
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How to Manage Aggression
•
Aggression Management’s Universal
Approach
1. Get the student away from the crowd.
2. Begin your interaction with a positive statement,
not a negative one (constructive, not punitive)
3. Explain the documented issues in a neutral and
reflective way (without sarcasm).
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How to Manage Aggression
•
Aggression Management’s Universal Approach
4. Explain that their present behavior is not in their best
interest.
5. Ask how we can work together to solve this problem.
Consider the miracle question “What outcome would
you like to see?”
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How to Manage Aggression
Call campus police immediately when
students hurt themselves. Rule of thumb: if
you see blood or a weapon, someone needs
to call the police.
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How to Manage Aggression
Call for help if you are concerned. Think of the
“hot potato” game. You don’t want to be left
holding the responsibility. Excuse yourself from
the classroom and make a call.
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How to Manage Aggression
Follow up on a situation. If you are not face-to-face
with the student and come by information second
hand, don’t wait to pass it on.
Don’t assume someone else will call or take care of
the situation. Pass on the information directly to
the police, academic dean, counseling or Behavioral
Intervention Team.
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How to Manage Aggression
• Shock or Challenge
– “Go ahead and do it”
• Analyze motives
– “You just feel bad because…”, “You really just want
to quit school and don’t want to tell anyone…”
• Over-react, embarrass student publically
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Remember To…
NOT Do These Things
• Distract the student by talking about other
things or trying to change the subject
• Cajoling the person
– “Really, come on. Who would want to do that?”
• Move fast or threaten the student by meeting
hostility with hostility
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Emergency
911
Involve
Judicial
Affairs
Action
Plan
Therapy
Referral
Remind
class
Email to
Student
Private
Meeting
Paper
Comment
Syllabus
Class Rules
Start
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Remember To…
DOCUMENT EVERYTHING
• Document the behavior you observe.
• Ask yourself
– Are there witness statements I should gather?
– Is there evidence I should save?
– Are my notes clear and legible?
– Will my statement withstand cross-examination?
– Did I create my statement immediately after event?
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Remember To…
DOCUMENT EVERYTHING
• Ask yourself:
– Did I organize the events chronologically?
– Did the report go where it needs to go?
– Am I writing objective facts?
– Am I telling the truth?
– Did I avoid distortions?
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Last Thoughts
• If the aggressive student is not responding, we
must look toward safe escape.
• This approach must be considered from the
start. Not just a “last ditch” approach that is
only considered after the student becomes
aggressive.
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Last Thoughts
• Know your emergency numbers & how to access
them, including back-up on-call administrators
• Develop a code word or gesture to communicate
with your back-up.
• Be aware of your FIGHT or FLIGHT instincts.
Understand that fighting is not an option.
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Last Thoughts
• Place yourself in the room with an awareness of
weapons and where you can escape.
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Case Study A
• To prepare for a test, your class plays a jeopardy
type of game where the class is divided into teams
and they compete for extra credit.
• Two students argue about a question. One yells,
“If you keep your mouth moving…I’m going to shut
it for you.” The other says, “I’d like to see you try.”
They move toward each other.
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Case Study B
•
A student frequently scares others by threatening
to attack a female in class and “bite into her neck.”
• The student says he is a big fan of vampire books
and movies and that he has a blood fetish. He finds
himself sexually aroused with thoughts of blood. He
shares this with you after class looking for a
response.
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Case Study C
•
A student writes an essay about coming to class
and killing other students with a sawed-off
shotgun. He reads the story aloud during a
creative writing class.
• Other students are visibly upset as he continues to
read the story.
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Resident Advisor
Card Exercise
Created by Brian Van Brunt, Ed.D. ©2010
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